


the ermendrud house

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: me sobbing about critical role [60]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Heavy Angst, Immolation, Tragedy, ghost story, ghost!caleb, graphic description of death-by-burning, what if caleb was a ghost?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:50:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: they say the house that sits on the edges of blumenthal is haunted.





	the ermendrud house

**Author's Note:**

> originally written on tumblr here: (https://theres-no-comma.tumblr.com/post/183928752982) and inspired by this post (http://kissingagrumpygiant.tumblr.com/post/183294600123/caleb-would-make-the-best-ghost-and-you-know-it) by @kissingagrumpygiant on tumblr

After he sets the house on fire, after his mind breaks, the only thing he can think about is that he must _get them out_. To _make the screams stop_. Astrid and Eodwulf can’t _(Won’t? Have they lost their empathy? Their capacity for humanity? What else has Ikithon taken from them? Us? What else has he carved away, hollowed out, what has he replaced us with, these shells of people, these once-were children?)_ stop him from going back into the house, and he’s not thinking straight, and as he scrambles across the burning wood of his childhood home, Bren Aldric Ermendrud is burned to death with his parents, and his screams join theirs.

By the time the sun rises Astrid and Eodwulf are gone, as if they had never been there at all, and the home is a pile of ash. The residents of Blumenthal are horrified ( _“It’s such a tragedy,”_ _they whisper at the funeral. “They were such a wonderful family,” they whisper at the wake._ _“I can’t believe this would happen to them!” they whisper in their homes._ )

But then.

The next night, after the fire, there’s a horrible noise. It comes from the land on the edge of the woods where there once stood a house and holds ash and nightmares and hollowed out trees. _“It’s the wind, surely?”_ they think to themselves.

No one is fooled. Even the simplest of them can recognize the wailing of the damned.

And so it becomes a local tale: don’t go down to the Ermendrud House, because they say it’s haunted, because they say if you stare too long you’ll burn up too, because they say the air is still so thick with smoke it’ll choke you before you can get away, because they say the ground is still hot, and if you don’t step right you’ll fall right through into the Abyss and the demons who live there will cut you up into pieces and feed you to monsters.

One day, years later, when all but the great grandparents with their white hair and aching bones and stories meant for ghosts have forgotten who lived in the Ermendrud House, and the name means nothing more than a warning for little children, an intrepid teenager decides to prove their classmates wrong (they are brave, they _are_ and they will prove it, it’s just a _house_ ) and go and spend the night at the Ermendrud House, because _it’s just the wind and some coyotes howling, everyone knows ghosts aren’t_ _real_.

And maybe they get shivers down their spine when they see the scorched ground, how not a single blade of grass is visible and the trees surrounding it are black and hollow. How there isn’t even a foundation left, and all the ashes have been blown away, but- but. They can see the scorch marks on the ground, the divots that could’ve only been made by a _magical_ fire, and for a second they can almost see it, the simple wooden house burning, beams collapsing, the flames flickering between orange and red to an unearthly _white_. But ghosts aren’t real, and they are brave.

The sun sets, and the noise starts, but it’s just the _wind_. It’s just a _dog_.

It’s pitch black, the middle of the night, when they see the ghost. It’s a man- no. It’s a- it’s a _boy_ , barely older than them, with eyes that are a bleached pale blue, that are surrounded with soot, and that are staring into their _soul_. The boy-ghost starts screaming, because it _is_ a scream, it’s not the wind or a dog, but _screaming_ , and his body is covered in flickering flames that are spreading, jumping across his pale body, until he is writhing on the ground, body a bonfire. The teenager stares, frozen, as the boy is reduced to nothing but ephemeral ashes on a blackened ground, and as the sun rises, there are flames branded in the teenager’s eyes.

_Don’t go near the Ermendrud House. They say it’s haunted. They say if you stare too long you’ll burn up just like the family that lived there._

_Don’t go near the Ermendrud House. Upon the scorched ground wanders a ghost who wears madness like a crown wreathed in flames._


End file.
